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Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education For The 21st Century
A critical approach to education in the era of interactive media, Confronting the Challenges of 'Participatory Culture is a collaborative effort from Henry Jenkins and other scholars through the MacArthur Foundation. The book points out the issues present in contemporary communication culture and what schools and parents must do in order to take advantage of new forms of communication and tailor education to a contemporary student audience. In doing so, the book also draws parallels with many other works of critical and cultural literature. Identifying The Issues For the majority of teenagers, being connected to the Internet is a way of life; not only are teens using the Internet to absorb content they are also using it to distribute content and participate in cultural exchange with others through memberships in online communities and creation of creative works. This participatory culture is identified by the authors as a culture that makes it easy for individuals to share and create content and form community bonds; in addition every member of the culture feels that they have freedom to contribute and their contributions will be considered and valued alongside others. This participatory culture and the technologies that have enabled it suggest a revision in the way that educators approach the students who are a part of it. Much like Haraway contends the value of diverse and situated perspectives, Jenkins and the other authors argue for a systemic approach that takes into account not only the "different communication technologies, the cultural communities that grow up around them, and the activities they support" (p. 101 Kindle). These new spaces are referred to as "affinity spaces" that offer "powerful opportunities for learning" because of their ability to engender commonality and shared interests; this is different from formal educational systems because they tend to be more experimental in nature (p, 128-129 Kindle). However, children cannot be relied upon to discover these benfits solely through their own work and understanding and as such the educational system must integrate them more fully into the curriculum. Jenkins et al. suggest that there are three reasons why this will not happen: #The participation gap - Not all young people have the same level of access to technologies and participation. These factors, according to the MacArthur Foundation, can be heavily influential in a students' success. Working class students, for example, must "rely more heavily on teachers and peers to make up for a lack of experience at home" (p. 190 Kindle). #The transparency problem - ''Children may not be "reflecting on their media experiences" and may be unable to "articulate what they learn from their participation" (p. 160 Kindle). To make the use of communications technology efficacious in the educational context, media literacy is important. #The ''ethics challenge - Children may not be able to develop the ethical perspective necessary to operate within a complex social environment. The "line between consumers and producers is blurring", and new ethical situations are arising with limited oversight from authority figures; moreover, the anonymous nature of games and other forms of online communication may have a disinhibitive effect on the user (p. 242-243 Kindle). To combat these problems, Jenkins and the other authors propose three guiding questions. The first asks how equal access can be assured to allow each student to become a fully functional member of the online society. The second questions how best to facilitate the ability of children to develop and articulate an understanding of how they are affected by the media, and the third focuses on engaging children in the new system of ethical standards (p. 260 Kindle). To address this, the authors turn their attention to the question of media literacy. On Media Literacy The authors begin by conceptualizing the new media literacy as "the set of abilities where aural, visual, and digital literacy overlap" to allow individuals to understand not only how and why media are effective but also how to adapt and use those media to the user's own ends; it also includes the importance of networking and other social skills (p. 272 Kindle). While the author scontend that traditional forms of literacy must be re-evaluated in this context, students should still be able to read, write, and research properly along with developing the technical skills necessary to create content in an online system. In addition, educational and individual perspectives must also be adjusted in order to compensate for changes in the media environment. The authors suggest a set of eleven skills necessary for success in the contemporary media landscape that can be added to course curricula in the next section. Core Media Literacy Skills #''Play: Identified by the authors as "the capcity to experiment with the surroundings as a form of problem solving", play is a useful skill because it encourages different kinds of learning (p. 327 Kindle). Play encourages the use of "certain skills and practices" with clear and tangible feedback and benefits; it also encourages experimentation and subsidizes failure as the ability to experiment without deterimental or fatal results (p. 327-329 Kindle). This effectively creates a scientific method in which different hypotheses can be tested to find a specific outcome. #''Simulation: Identified by the authors as "the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes", simulation is the ability to allow direct observation and interaction with a simulalcrum of a situation that can be used to either learn about processes or test "assumptions about the way the world works" (p. 379-380 Kindle). Simulations can be powerful educational tools because they allow students to engage and make their own discoveries about a phenomenon. These simulations are an example of what Ian Bogost refers to as "procedural literacy", or the ability to "restructure and reconfigure knowledge to look at problems from multiple vantage points" and create a greater level of understanding (p. 409 Kindle). #''Performance: Performance is the "ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery"; this skill allows users to project their identities and desires onto a virtual character and see that character as an extension of themselves (p. 430 Kindle). These forms of role-playing are very popular among young people and can "provide a point of entry into larger spheres of knowledge" (p. 463 Kindle). Projected or role-played identities are placed into specific situations to allow users to "test the viability of a design" and the strengths or weaknesses of a particular course of action (p. 486 Kindle). #Appropriation: Describe das "the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content", appropriation refers to the necessity of influence and engagement with previous forms of media to create new forms of art (p. 504 Kindle). In this skill, students learn by taking texts apart and reassembling them in new forms, a practice that has been facilitated by digital technologies. #''Multitasking: Multitasking, in the authors' estimation, is "the ability to scan the environment and shift focus onto salient details"; it focuses on how learners attempt to seek out the most important aspects of the environment around them and juggle multiple tasks at once (p. 565 Kindle). The authors contend that mutlitasking, much like more direct attention, can be used to "manage constraints on short-term memory" (p. 575 Kindle). Young students often multitask in their everyday lives and activities and in doing so can learn to handle many tasks at once with proper guidance. #''Distributed Cognition'': One of the skills that is perhaps most germane to the consideration of new media is that of distributed cognition, or "the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities" (p. 606 Kindle). In this perspective, intelligence is not only within the individual, it is spread out and shared over the world in a networked fashion; not only do individuals attempt to create social networks in which they seek out individuals with expertise and share their own knowledge via various network communication methods and create a collective pool of knowledge and understanding. #''Collective Intelligence'': The creation of networks in which "like-minded individuals" gather creates a form of collective intelligence that builds upon the notion of distributed cognition to "pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal" - that which anyone in the group knows, everyone else in the group knows (p. 656 Kindle). These communities can "change the very nature of media consumption" away from the individual toward "socialized or communalized media that is central to the culture of media convergence" (p. 677 Kindle). This has also changed the way in which many companies operate, with more of a focus on team efforts and specialization of individuals; schools instead promote more generalized knowledge. Distributed cognition and collective intelligence are perhaps the best implementation of Haraway's cyborg theory. #''Judgment'': Critical evaluation of sources is an important component of functioning in a networked society, and the authors contend that schools must teach students how to seek out the "quality of information" themselves in an environment without learned gatekeepers (p. 736 Kindle). Moreover, students must learn not only to determine what is credible but also the goals and objectives of those that are publishing content online and the audience they seek to reach. To achieve full understanding, this skill requires that students understand not only what is credible but also the larger media system in which sources operate. #''Transmedia Navigation'': Convergence culture dictates that the same stories or concepts can echo across multiple forms of media and multiple forms of media can also be used to tell a larger story. This skill gives students the ability to "follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities" (p. 774 Kindle). The concept of multimodality suggests that the same information can be ported across multiple forms of media; through this skill students can learn to reconcile different versions of the same content and also how the content is served or limited by the form through which it is delivered (p. 793 Kindle). Such a phenomnenon affects teaching because it requires student to look beyond the text itself and toward what forms of media conveyance are most useful for reaching particular audiences; students must also be able to create in multiple forms of media and use the appropriate forms of technology to do so. #''Networking'': Defined by the authors as "the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information", this is the skill that asks students to connect with the world around them to both be social and to have increased access to information (p. 823 Kindle). Rather than simply waiting passively for information to come to the student, students instead must learn not only where to find information but also which groups may have the information they seek. Moreover, students must also learn how to use these networks to distribute their own content as well as how to use information appropriately and to give proper credit and citations. #''Negotiation'': The final skill suggested by the authors has to do with the ability to manage the "fluid communication within the new media environment" and how that communication reflects the diversity and different social contexts of the groups that facilitate it (p. 883). Because the nature of the Internet is such that it brings together geographically or socially disparate individuals, conflicts can often erupt and tools used to bridge social gaps can serve to ostracize. The authors contend that students must "acquire skills in understanding multiple perspectives, respecting and even embracing diversity of views, understanding a variety of social norms, and negotiating among conflicting opinions" (p. 891 Kindle). Negotiation is built upon respect and understanding and an objective view of the user, allowing us to discover the benefits of alternative perspectives and a collaborative system of creating meaning. Implementation of Skills The authors suggest that these skills have "implications across the school curriculum" and represent a "paradigm shift that, like multiculturalism or globalization, reshapes how we teach every existing subject" (p. 966 Kindle). These skills, then, should be implemented as part of the curriculum rather than being tacked onto the existing curriculum (p. 966 Kindle). The authors also advocate for media literacy programs to develop an "informed and critical understanding fo the nature of the mass media, the techniques used by them, and the impact of those techniques" as well as who the messages are aimed at and how different audiences may interpret messages differently (p. 976 Kindle). The authors recommend an approach that teaches both critical analysis and media creation services to encourage students to analyze and understand the media and how they use it as both consumers and creators; they also contend that such practices should be undertaken early in order to take advantage of a child's formative years. Category:Books